{"id":16404,"date":"2021-03-01T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-01T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailchi.mp\/urc\/urc-daily-devotion-1st-march-2021"},"modified":"2021-03-01T06:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-03-01T06:00:00","slug":"urc-daily-devotion-1st-march-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/urc-daily-devotion-1st-march-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"URC Daily Devotion\u00a0 1st March 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monday 1st March<\/strong>
 <\/p>\n

St Mark 11: 15 – 19<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold doves;  and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple.  He was teaching and saying, \u2018Is it not written,<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations\u201d?<\/span>
    But you have made it a den of robbers.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him; for they were afraid of him, because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching. And when evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city.<\/span><\/p>\n

Reflection<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

It seems amazing sometimes how differently people can react to what is going on around them.  They read and hear and see things in opposite ways. Of course, it all depends on where you are standing and what your life experiences have been like.  Do you see life from a place of comfort and privilege or one of vulnerability and pain? Last year\u2019s Black Lives Matter protests challenged us all to look again at where we are coming from and the attitudes and assumptions ingrained within us.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jesus\u2019s dramatic protest action in the temple raises just such a variety of reactions among those involved.  For the sellers and money changers his actions must have caused outrage.  For those exploited by the Temple systems, it must have raised a cheer.  For the religious leaders it caused fear \u2013 and fear is perhaps one of the most potentially destructive emotions around.  Fear can lead people to do inhuman things \u2013 to remove what they fear, rather than to ask themselves why they are afraid.  The leaders felt threatened and their response was to plot to destroy the troublemaker.<\/span><\/p>\n

The ordinary people \u2013 the whole crowd \u2013 were \u2018spellbound.\u2019 It\u2019s perhaps not the most literal of translations (with its overtones of magic) but suitable all the same (with its sense of childlike wonder).  What holds you spellbound?  Is it even possible in our tired and cynical times?   \u2013 In his history of the world, the great novelist and atheist H J Wells described Jesus as \u2018like some terrible moral huntsman digging humankind out of the snug burrows in which they had lived\u2019 and humanity as dazzled by \u2018the white blaze of the kingdom\u2019 Jesus proclaimed.  Are we spellbound, dazzled, brought to our knees by this Jesus who speaks even now, pointing to a better way?<\/span><\/p>\n

Prayer<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Lord Jesus we are dazzled by your light,<\/span>
exposing the wrong in our world and our hearts,<\/span>
stirring up hope and renewing vision,<\/span>
a vision of justice and inclusion for all.<\/span>
Help us to stand with you<\/span>
in your love-filled struggle<\/span>
for the Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.   <\/span> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monday 1st March  St Mark 11: 15 – 19 Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold doves;  and he would … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “URC Daily Devotion\u00a0 1st March 2021”<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16404\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}